Joe Rogan – Joe Rogan – Shiny Happy Jihad

Joe Rogan is a screaming comic and I do not like comedians who feel they must scream their punch lines. It is after listening to Fear Factor host Joe Rogan’s latest stand-up comedy CD Shiny Happy Jihad that I figured out why I have had his first, I’m Gonna Be Dead Someday, for a while and haven’t gotten around to reviewing it: Joe Rogan is a screaming comic. This said, and trying to be fair nonetheless, Shiny Happy Jihad does not impress.

Joe Rogan covers the now somewhat tired seventy-two virgins and terrorists material on this CD but brings nothing new to the table. I am also convinced his joke about Osama getting better cell phone reception has already been done (by Lewis Black on either Rules of Enragement or The Carnegie Hall Performance for example).

His material on bisexual versus gay people is also somewhat derivative and his Brokeback Mountain routine is, however, decent. I also kind of enjoyed his bit on March of the Penguins. I wish he had done more with his origins of the pyramids bit and his Catholic routine does rise above the fray.

I am most certainly not sensitive to comics who work blue but am less than impressed when they do so as a form of steroids for average material. Joe Rogan is that kind of stand-up comic on Shiny Happy Jihad.

Shiny Happy Jihad ends with four “bonus tracks” where Rogan answers questions from the audience. His answers are more factual than set-ups for some improvised comedy. What really bugged me, something that happens to frequently on tracks like these is you rarely get to hear the question and Rogan doesn’t bother repeating it for the CD listener.

To be a bit mean: there is a picture of Joe Rogan setting off some dynamite on the cover of his new stand-up comedy CD. He does not do so on it

Joe Rogan
Shiny Happy Jihad
Stand-up Comedy CD
Comedy Central Records 2007
71 minutes
Distributed in Canada by Fusion III

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